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Constrain   /kənstrˈeɪn/   Listen
Constrain

verb
(past & past part. constrained; pres. part. constraining)
1.
Hold back.  Synonyms: cumber, encumber, restrain.
2.
Restrict.  Synonyms: stiffen, tighten, tighten up.  "Stiffen the regulations"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Constrain" Quotes from Famous Books



... indicate that the pronunciation was not heroes as it had formerly been.[364] In the "possessive singular of nouns already ending in s" Mr. Masson tells us, "Milton's general practice is not to double the s; thus, Nereus wrinkled look, Glaucus spell. The necessities of metre would naturally constrain to such forms. In a possessive followed by the word sake or the word side, dislike to [of] the double sibilant makes us sometimes drop the inflection. In addition to 'for righteousness' sake' such phrases as 'for thy name sake' and 'for mercy sake,' are ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell

... think of, with a nest upon it, swinging in a summer wind. More gently she addresses him, pleading rather than repelling, winning him to give up his way for hers. "Eternal am I,... but eternal for your weal! Oh, Siegfried, joyous hero! Renounce me.... Approach me not with ardent approach.... Constrain me not with shattering constraint.... Have you not seen your own image in the clear stream? Has it not gladdened you, glad one? If you stir the water into turmoil, the smooth surface is lost, you cannot see your own reflection ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall

... dearest life, misinterpret every thing I do. Can you think me so mean and unworthy as to employ a servant to constrain you?—I call him to send to the public-houses, or inns in this town, to inquire after Captain Tomlinson, who may have alighted at some one of them, and be now, perhaps, needlessly adjusting his dress; and I would have him come, were he to be without clothes, ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... forced repentance of invalid mutineers and disbanded thieves you can hope for no resource. Government itself, which ought to constrain the more bold and dexterous of these robbers, is their accomplice. Its arms, its treasures, its all are in their hands. Judicature, which above all things should awe them, is their creature and their instrument. Nothing ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... our habitation may, if he will, be like a resting-place, from which he may look abroad upon the pilgrimage which he must take, and the path which he has to travel.—What sayest thou, friend Latimer? We constrain not our friends to our ways, and thou art, I think, too wise to quarrel with us for following our own fashions; and if we should even give thee a word of advice, thou wilt not, I think, be angry, so that it ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott

... hither the poor and maimed and blind and lame.' And the servant said, 'Lord, what thou didst command is done, and yet there is room.' And the lord said unto the servant, 'Go out into the highways and hedges, and constrain them to come in, that my house may be filled. For I say unto you, that none of those men that were bidden ...
— His Life - A Complete Story in the Words of the Four Gospels • William E. Barton, Theodore G. Soares, Sydney Strong

... for their love, or in the presence of a foreign enemy for their hatred. In the early part of the French Revolution, indeed as long as it was evident that the end was the common safety, the National Assembly had the power to turn the people into any course, to constrain them to any task, while their voluntary efforts, as far as these could be exercised, were not abated in consequence. That which the National Assembly did for France, the Spanish Sovereign's authority acting through those whom the people themselves ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... "Spirituals," two kinds of churches: (1) The church composed of a visible group, {146} "to be pointed out with the finger," located in a definite country, allied with a temporal government, held together by a body of doctrine, "tied to" certain sacraments and possessed of force to constrain men, by "carnall perswasions," to conform.[21] Then there is (2) the real Church of God, "the upper Jerusalem," a body visible in no one locality, but dispersed over the earth like wheat in chaff, held together by no declarations of doctrine, tied to no sacraments, dependent ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones

... as yet. But now he shall learn all; now we will go before him and tell him that we love each other, and constrain him, by our prayers, to bless our union, ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach

... [Footnote 187: Or "constrain not thyself for me," in do not be ashamed to say what thou wishes", lit. "let it not be hard or grievous upon thee from or on account of me" (la yesubu aleika minni). Burton, "Let not my words seem ...
— Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp • John Payne

... business of Public Community, which I am carried forth in the Power of Love and clear light of Universal Righteousness to advance as much as I can; and I can do no other, the Law of Love in my heart does so constrain me; by reason whereof I am called fool and madman, and have many slanderous reports cast upon me, and meet with much fury from some covetous people; under all of which my spirit is made patient and is guarded with joy and peace. I hate none, I love all, I delight ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens

... thee, shun the parting bane * Nor to forgetfulness thy thoughts constrain: Be patient; thou shalt bury all thy foes; * Allah ne'er falseth man of ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton

... asceticism with its hatred of the body is dead; the servile acceptance of conditions of life and even of natural laws is seen to be vicious; it is of the nobility of man to be insatiate in desire and to rebel against limiting conditions; it is the property of his intelligence to constrain even the laws of nature to the attainment of ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris

... and chances thereof, and refusing to call anything good except the true good, from which thou, O king, art miserably sundered and alienated. Wherefore also we ourselves were alienated and separated from thee, because thou wert falling into plain and manifest destruction, and wouldst constrain us also to descend into like peril. But as long as we were tried in the warfare of this world, we failed in no point of duty. Thou thyself will bear me witness that we were never ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus

... the father of the nation which he was about to devour: this mixture of stupidity on one side, and cunning on the other: the stale hypocrisy of the courtiers throwing a veil over the arrogance of the master: all inspired me with an insurmountable disgust. It was necessary however to constrain one's feelings, and during these solemnities you were exposed to meet with official congratulations, which at other times it was more easy ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein

... stand in need of considerable sums, and as even hundreds of pounds go but a very little way, I entreat the Lord day by day, and generally several times every day, to supply me with means, to speak to the hearts of His dear children, and to constrain them by the love of Christ to help me out of the means, with which He has intrusted them; and so it comes to pass, I doubt not, that the Lord again and again works by His Spirit in the hearts of those who have read or heard the Reports. But whether we are supplied with means through ...
— A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, Fourth Part • George Mueller

... bring to light the Augustan age of Christianity in England," adding that it is the secret also of the great writer's appreciation of the higher Teutonic literature. His sombre rather than consolatory sense of "God in History," his belief in the mission of righteousness to constrain unrighteousness, and his Stoic view that good and evil are absolute opposites, are his links with the Puritans, whom he habitually exalts in variations ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol

... word, to the end of time; for without him we can do nothing. I was much rejoiced to hear of those marks of love and affection to that poor soldier of the S. D. militia. Surely the love of Christ sent you to that poor man. May that love ever dwell richly in you by faith! May it constrain you to seek the wandering souls of men with the fervent desire to spend and be spent for his glory! May the unction of the Holy Spirit attend the word spoken by you with power, and convey deep conviction to the hearts of your hearers! May many of them experience ...
— The Annals of the Poor • Legh Richmond

... Truth, and indeed believe and hold for a truth all that which I write in this case, as true as Heaven and Hell are preordained, and proposed as Rewards of good and evil to the Elect and Reprobate. Now I write not only with my hands, but my Mind, Will and heart constrain me to it: Those who are highly conceited, illuminated, and world-wise, hate, envy, scandalize, defame and persecute this Mystery to the utmost Rind, or innermost Kernel, which hath its beginning out of the Center; but I know assuredly, there will come a time, when my Marrow is ...
— Of Natural and Supernatural Things • Basilius Valentinus

... made mention of me, and were particularly interesting to me; I was sure in this instance there was nothing to constrain the frankness of those who had written them. It is an advantage which few people can boast having enjoyed to ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago

... the soul which dwelt side by side with this narrow intellect! And what a flame must have glowed within him before he could constrain the Florentines, possessed as they were by the passion for knowledge and culture, to surrender themselves to a man who ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt

... canst not look upon him as held forth, but faith will bow thy neck to take on his yoke, because it sees it is lined with the love of Christ, and then this love that lines the yoke, shed abroad in the heart, will constrain to a bearing of it; but, 3d, When the spirit is willing, there remains yet much weakness; love kindled in the heart conquers the mind into a compliance with his will, and a complacency in his commands, but its greatest strength is often to weep over a withered hand. ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)

... or by Thirst constrain'd, The deep recesses of the Grove he gain'd; Where in a Plain, defended by the Wood, Crept thro' the matted Grass a Crystal Flood, By which an Alabaster Fountain stood: And on the Margin of the Fount was laid, (Attended by her ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... in his selection of patrons. Cobham, Bolingbroke.[260] Cibber's abuse will be better to him than a dose of hartshorn. Poems long delayed. Satire and praise late, alluding to something past. He had always some poetical plan in his head.[261] Echo to the sense. Would not constrain himself too much. Felicities of language. Watts.[262] Luxury of language. Motives to study; want of health, want of money; helps to study; some small patrimony. Prudent and frugal; ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli

... the notes, perhaps, were written exactly at the period of time to which they relate; but this can little affect their accuracy, as the impressions were such that they can never fade from my mind. Much has been omitted. I could not, without effort, constrain myself to the task of either recalling, or constructing into a regular narrative, the whole burthen of horrors which lies upon my brain. This feeling partly I plead in excuse, and partly that I am now in London, and am a ...
— Confessions of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas De Quincey

... promoted if everyone felt himself under an irresistible obligation to assist his neighbour whenever he could do so with little or no inconvenience to himself, or, consequently, if external force were always at hand to constrain anyone so to assist who was unwilling to do so of his ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton

... has thus emphatically taught us that there is no possibility of passing from one state to another beyond the boundary of this life in order that he may thereby constrain us to make the needful transition now. The impassable gulf between the saved and the outcast in eternity is a dreadful sight; it was the compassionate Jesus who drew aside the curtain and exposed it to view, and it was his great love that moved him to make this ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot

... gained by complying with the duties of whatever condition of life one is in, and you must constrain yourself to rise to that exalted station in which destiny has ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... beginning ye vex the steed with the rein, Lest at last in its latter ending, when the sword hath hushed the horn, His limbs should be weary and fail, and his might be over-worn. O be wise, lest thy love constrain me, and my vision wax o'er-clear, And thou ask of the thing that thou shouldst not, and the thing that ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris

... the tears leaped to her eyes. She couldn't restrain them any more than the earth can constrain the rain. She turned into her own curtained-off portion of the cabin so that ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall

... him, sold for the benefit of the hospital and never be allowed to be freed; excepting, that, if the man was not married to another person at the time of his concubinage, he was to marry the woman slave, who, together with her children, should thereby become free. Masters were forbidden to constrain slaves to marry against their will. Many Frenchmen like those in Haiti married their Negro mistresses, producing attractive half caste women who because of their wealth were sought by gentlemen in preference to their own ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various

... to endue his own imaginary creations with vitality, the equanimity of the epic poet would in him be indifference; he must decidedly take part with one or other of the leading views of human life, and constrain his audience also to participate in the ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black

... discuss, and write, but I will constrain none, for faith is a voluntary act. Observe what has been done: I stood up against the Pope, indulgences and other abominations, but without violence or tumults. I put forward God's Word. I preached and wrote. This was all I did. Yet while I slept or gossiped ...
— Count Ulrich of Lindburg - A Tale of the Reformation in Germany • W.H.G. Kingston

... country—how much he its child—are insulted by these outrages offered to the laws,—to those who execute them, and those who are for them. Do you not blush that a handful of turbulent men, who appear numerous because they are united and make a noise, should constrain you to do their pleasure, by telling you it is your own, and by amusing your puerile curiosity by unworthy spectacles? In a city that respected itself, such a fete would find before it silence and solitude, the streets and public places abandoned, ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine

... pretext for concealing his faults; bashfulness leads imperceptibly to dissimulation and falsehood. I am happy in affirming that Monseigneur is scrupulously truthful. I have believed it requisite, by reason of the vivacity of his disposition, and the high destiny awaiting him, to constrain him to reflect before acting. The word JUSTICE has a real charm for him; I have never ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand

... behind them. This was not done too soon, for they had got but a short distance off when a number of warriors from the camp, uttering loud shouts, galloped up, evidently expecting to indulge in the plunder of the fort. The young chief, no longer able to constrain the rage he felt at his disappointment, turning round, made gestures significant of his intended vengeance; then, putting spurs to his horse, he galloped off beyond range of any rifle-shot which he might well have ...
— The Frontier Fort - Stirring Times in the N-West Territory of British America • W. H. G. Kingston

... on my right breast, my baby lay! Nobody else will lie beside me!— Ah, within thine arms to hide me, That was a sweet and a gracious bliss, But no more, no more can I attain it! I would force myself on thee and constrain it, And it seems thou repellest my kiss: And yet 'tis thou, so ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

... stepping with freedom and command, leading not following, Those with a never-quell'd audacity, those with sweet and lusty flesh clear of taint, Those that look carelessly in the faces of Presidents and governors, as to say Who are you? Those of earth-born passion, simple, never constrain'd, never obedient, ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman

... and to reward vertue, not to despise povertie, to esteme the maners and orders of warfare, to constrain the citezeins to love one an other, to live without sectes, to esteme lesse the private, than the publike, and other like thinges, that easily might bee with this time accompanied: the which maners ar not difficult to bring ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli

... years survived; And 'scaped the perils of the gulfy main. Ulysses, sole of all the victor train, An exile from his dear paternal coast, Deplored his absent queen and empire lost. Calypso in her caves constrain'd his stay, With sweet, reluctant, amorous delay; In vain-for now the circling years disclose The day predestined to reward his woes. At length his Ithaca is given by fate, Where yet new labours his arrival wait; At length their rage the hostile powers ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope

... most? Simon answered and said, I suppose that he to whom he forgave most. And he said unto him, Thou has rightly judged." This is no mere theory, that love ought to be the controlling motive, but it is the controlling motive. And it is not a mere theory that love ought to constrain the real Christian, the real believer, but the love of Christ does constrain us (2 ...
— God's Plan with Men • T. T. (Thomas Theodore) Martin

... not in laws, statutes, or rules, but according to their own free will and pleasure. They rose out of their beds when they thought good; they did eat, drink, labor, sleep, when they had a mind to it, and were disposed for it. None did awake them, none did offer to constrain them to eat, drink, nor to do any other thing; for so had Gargantua established it. In all their rule, and strictest tie of their order, there was but this one ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson

... By Fate constrain'd Eurystheus to obey, The matchless Hero now must bend his way, To gain the golden girdle which adorns The Queen of Amazons. Who proudly scorns To yield, and in her warriors doth confide— But vanquish'd she becomes great ...
— The Twelve Labours of Hercules, Son of Jupiter & Alcmena • Anonymous

... but the Severity of Antonio's Fate was no Way obliging to her, since she could not but retain the Memory of his Love and Constancy; which added to her Afflictions, and heightned her Distemper, insomuch that Richardo was constrain'd to leave her under the Care of the good Lady Abbess, and to the diligent Attendance of Eleonora, not daring to hazard her Life in a Removal to his own House. All their Care and Diligence was however ineffectual; for she languished even to the least Hope of Recovery, till immediately ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn

... is silent, but under the operation of the most-favored-nation clause we have like privileges with those of other powers. While it is the duty of the Government to see that our citizens have the full enjoyment of every benefit secured by treaty, I doubt the expediency of leading in a movement to constrain China to admit an interpretation which we have only an indirect treaty right to exact. The transference to China of American capital for the employment there of Chinese labor would in effect inaugurate a competition for the control of ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 8: Chester A. Arthur • James D. Richardson

... ritual of the mound with its red image of the snake combines the principles of religion and magic. So far as the rite is intended to please and propitiate the mythical beast, it is religious; so far as it is intended to constrain him, it is magical. The two principles are contradictory and the attempt to combine them is illogical; but the savage is heedless, or rather totally unaware, of the contradiction and illogicality: all that concerns him is to accomplish his ends: he ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer

... little doubting, it was the priest's assurance that Francois Paradis, in the place where now he was, cared only for masses to repose his soul, and never at all for the deep and tender regrets lingering behind him. This she could not constrain herself to believe. Unable to think of him otherwise in death than in life, she felt it must bring him something of happiness and consolation that her sorrow was keeping alive their ineffectual love for a little space beyond death. Yet, since the priest ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon

... William convinced, or seemed to convince, all men out of England and Scandinavia that his claim to the English crown was just and holy, and that it was a good work to help him to assert it in arms. He persuaded his own subjects; he certainly did not constrain them. He persuaded some foreign princes to give him actual help, some to join his muster in person; he persuaded all to help him so far as not to hinder their subjects from joining him as volunteers. And all this was done by sheer persuasion, by argument ...
— William the Conqueror • E. A. Freeman

... sepulchral solemnity. The menacing majesty of Enjolras disarmed and motionless, appeared to oppress this tumult, and this young man, haughty, bloody, and charming, who alone had not a wound, who was as indifferent as an invulnerable being, seemed, by the authority of his tranquil glance, to constrain this sinister rabble to kill him respectfully. His beauty, at that moment augmented by his pride, was resplendent, and he was fresh and rosy after the fearful four and twenty hours which had just elapsed, as though he could no more be fatigued than wounded. ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... into the open country and meeting Pierre and Jean Bernard, uncle and nephew, one aged forty-five and the other ten, seized on them both, and putting a pistol into the hands of the child, forced him to shoot his uncle. In the meantime the boy's father had come up, and him they tried to constrain to shoot his son; but finding that no threats had any effect, they ended by killing both, one by the sword, ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... Host's-fetter, i.e. having the power to impede or constrain an army at will: her, an army, a host, ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson

... are on me, oh to serve Thee truly, Pants, pants my soul to perfectly obey! Burn, burn, O Fire, O Wind, now winnow throughly! Constrain, inspire to follow all the way! Oh that in me Thou, my Lord, may see Of the travail of Thy soul, And ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael

... he resolved to seek her in hell and win her back by his skill. And he played so marvelously there that the King of Hell to reward him gave him back his wife again, only upon the condition that he should not turn back to look at her as he led her forth. But, alas, who can constrain love? When Orpheus came to the boundary of darkness and light, he turned round to see if his ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry

... time, Dost thou constrain that I Should perish in my youth's sweet prime? I, but awhile ago, (you cruel powers!) In spite of fortune, cropped contentment's sweetest flowers, And yet unscorned, serve a gentle nymph, the fairest she, That ever was beloved of man, or eyes did ever see! Yea, one whose tender ...
— Pastoral Poems by Nicholas Breton, - Selected Poetry by George Wither, and - Pastoral Poetry by William Browne (of Tavistock) • Nicholas Breton, George Wither, William Browne (of Tavistock)

... perfection; and the meaning of all that God does with us—joys and sorrows, light and darkness, when His hand gives, and when His hand withdraws, as when His authoritative voice commands, and the sweet impulses of His love graciously constrain—is that our wills may be made plastic and flexible, like a piece of wrought leather, to every touch of His hand. True meekness goes far deeper down than any attitude towards men. It lays hold on the sovereign will of God as our supreme good, and delights in ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren

... we shall in no case enter into the kingdom of God." A simple enumeration therefore of the benefits they have received from this kind and condescending heavenly Father, is well fitted to fill the heart of an unsophisticated child with affection and zeal,—and most powerfully to constrain him to avoid every thing that he is told will grieve and offend him, and to watch for opportunities to do what he now knows will honour and please him. This is religion; and it is peculiarly the religion of the young;—and that man or woman will be found most ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall

... into embarking with a south wind blowing. That sounds all very well, you think, only I may get you on board during a calm. Granted, but I shall be on board my one ship, and you on board another hundred at least, and how am I to constrain you to voyage with me against your will, or by what cajolery shall I carry you off? But I will imagine you so far befooled and bewitched by me, that I have got you to the Phasis; we proceed to disembark on dry land. At last it will come out, ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon

... individual when the heart is the most tender, when plunged into a condition in which every pang of bereaved sorrow, every tie of affection, and every throb of love, press him to crave with all his being that communication with the dead may be proved a fact, and to constrain him to accept the doctrine, unless kept from it by some power stronger than the cords that bind heart to heart in deathless love. If it be a deception, it occupies a vantage ground before which ...
— Modern Spiritualism • Uriah Smith

... Francis and Mary, and of themselves as Privy Council! They did more. They caused one James Cocky, a gold worker, to forge the great seal of Francis and Mary, "wherewith they sealed their pretended laws and ordinances, tending to constrain the subjects of the kingdom to rebel and favour their usurpations." Their proclamations with the forged seal they issued at St. Andrews, Glasgow, Linlithgow, Perth, and elsewhere; using this seal in their letters to noblemen, who were ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang

... declared. "They do not pin their reader to a dogma, which he must afterward discover to be inexact; they do not teach a lesson, which he must afterward unlearn. They repeat, they rearrange, they clarify the lessons of life; they disengage us from ourselves, they constrain us to the acquaintances of others, and they show us the web of experience not as we can see it for ourselves, but with a singular change—that monstrous, consuming ego of ours being, for the nonce, struck out. To be so, they must be reasonably true to the human comedy; and any work that is so serves ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton

... decreed that no man should come to the service said by a priest well known to keep a concubine. These men let to farm concubines to their priests, and yet constrain men by force against their will to ...
— The Apology of the Church of England • John Jewel

... leave—that she was on a visit to New York to see her friends—afterward wished to return to her three children whom she left in Virginia, from whom it would be HARD to separate her. Furthermore, he diligently tried to constrain her to say that she did not want to be interfered with—that she wanted to go with him—that she was on a visit to New York—had children in the South, etc.; but the woman's desire to be free was altogether too strong to allow her to make ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still

... May not this constant dodging or hurdling of statutes be a sign that there is something the matter with the statutes? Is it not possible that graft is the cracking and bursting of the receptacles in which we have tried to constrain the business of this country? It seems possible that business has had to control politics because its laws were so stupidly obstructive. In the trust agitation this is especially plausible. For there is every reason ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann

... your majesty that occasions may sometimes exist, on which official considerations would constrain the chief of a nation to be silent and passive in relation even to objects which affect his sensibility and claim his interposition as a man. Finding myself precisely in this situation at present, ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) • John Marshall

... torrents flow, With countenance dejected To ponder to thy closet go; What heretofore hath given Thy God, didst thou deride, Thy Father who's in Heaven Now turn'd hath to thy side. From fury and from pressing He turneth for thy good, As if by love and blessing Constrain thy heart ...
— Paul Gerhardt's Spiritual Songs - Translated by John Kelly • Paul Gerhardt

... cast the brocade[FN352] and hath given an hundred thousand dinars in settlement, and he is King of Shiraz and its dependencies and is lord of empire and horsemen and footmen?" But when the Princess heard these words she said, "O my papa! I desire not that whereof thou speakest, and if thou constrain me to that I have no mind to, I will slay myself." So Sabur left her and went in to Gharib, who rose to him; and they sat awhile together; but the King could not take his fill of looking upon him; and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... "Do not constrain her to call me mother," she said. "I do not despair of gaining her affections in time. I care not for the mere name, unaccompanied by the feelings which make it so ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz

... could to increase their own infatuation. How, then, can we hope, when the war is over, and when the disasters to which it will have led will have become unmistakable, that the intellectuals will curb their pride and will constrain themselves to say, "We were wrong"?—To ask this would be to ask too much. The older generation, I fear, will have to endure to the last its sickness of mind and its obstinacy. On this side there is little hope. We can only wait until the older ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland

... where there is a Power set up to constrain those that would otherwise violate their faith, that feare is no more reasonable; and for that cause, he which by the Covenant is to perform first, is obliged ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes

... by which an equally becoming support would be provided for "Supporters." An unsatisfactory custom has been either to place the Supporters, whatever they may be, upon some very slight renaissance scroll work that is neither graceful nor consistent, or, to constrain the Motto scroll to provide a foundation or standing-place for them. In the latter case, an energetic lion, or a massive elephant, and, in a certain class of achievements of comparatively recent date, amounted trooper, or ...
— The Handbook to English Heraldry • Charles Boutell

... no reply, but returned the sherd with his own name inscribed. At his departure from the city, lifting up his hands to heaven, he made a prayer (the reverse, it would seem, of that of Achilles), that the Athenians might never have any occasion which should constrain them to remember Aristides. ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch

... this great controversy. Any other rule attributes infallibility to human laws, places them beyond question, and degrades all men to an unthinking, passive obedience. The mandates of an earthly power are to be discussed; those of Heaven must at once be performed; nor can any agreement constrain us against God. Such is the rule of morals. And now the rule is commended to us. The good citizen, as he thinks of the shivering fugitive, guilty of no crime, pursued, hunted down like a beast, while praying for Christian help and deliverance, and as he reads the requirements ...
— The Duty of Disobedience to the Fugitive Slave Act - Anti-Slavery Tracts No. 9, An Appeal To The Legislators Of Massachusetts • Lydia Maria Child

... and squire, and seneschal, And pastime both of hawk and hound, and all That appertains to noble maintenance. Yea, and he brought me to a goodly house; But since our fortune swerved from sun to shade, And all thro' that young traitor, cruel need Constrain'd us, but a better time has come; So clothe yourself in this, that better fits Our mended fortunes and a Prince's bride: For tho' ye won the prize of fairest fair, And tho' I heard him call you fairest fair, Let never maiden think, however fair, She is ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester

... that I wrote to Trevanion to decline his offers. Nor was the sacrifice so great—even putting aside the natural pride which had before inclined to it—as it may seem to some; for restless though I was, I had labored to constrain myself to other views of life than those which close the vistas of ambition with images of the terrestrial deities, Power and Rank. Had I not been behind the scenes, noted all of joy and of peace that the pursuit ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... none of these adversities constrain us to call upon God's Name and to trust Him, yet were an alone more than sufficient to train and to urge us on in this work. For sin has hemmed us in with three strong, mighty armies. The first is our own flesh, the second the world, the third the evil ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther

... it might be well to constrain men to accept it. But the lords of this world are fallible men; and though as units they ought to be and perhaps are better than those others who have fewer advantages, they are much more likely as units to go astray ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope

... distempered sleep, troubled by dreams which, whether they be pleasant or bitter, equally lack roots in the permanent realities to which we shall wake some day. But if we hold by Jesus Christ, who died for us, and let His love constrain us, His Cross quicken us, and the might of His great sacrifice touch us, and the blood of sprinkling be applied to our eyeballs as an eye-salve, that we may see, we shall wake from our opiate sleep—though it may be ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... Spanish Wines or Petersimen, and Beere, were in one Night frozen upon the Sleds, notwithstanding they were cover'd with Straw; in so much, that when next morning they would have drawn of those Liquors, they found all dry, and were constrain'd to carry them into a Stove, to thaw them; which they could not do in two whole days, and were obliged to break the Vessels, and put pieces of the Icy Wine into Kettles to thaw them over the Fire, for Drink: That they asked not for a Draught, ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various

... and I forgive you for it. When the first intoxication of your success is over, and you begin to perceive a void in your enjoyments, I hope you will return to your friend, whom you will always find in the same sentiments; at present do not constrain yourself, I leave you at liberty to act as you please, and wait your leisure." He said I was right, made his arrangements in consequence, and shook off all restraint, so that I saw no more of him except in company ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... its Supreme Author from the creation, and not to do capriciously things that are in direct opposition to such laws. From this principle spring the various prohibitions to couple sexually different species of animals, to practise on them castration, to constrain simultaneously to joint labour beasts of unequal strength, to muzzle them while thrashing, and to use towards them any kind of cruelty. Nay, it is enjoined that they, also, should participate in the general rest ordained for men on festivals. It is well for us to reflect how incomplete are as ...
— A Guide for the Religious Instruction of Jewish Youth • Isaac Samuele Reggio

... which, emitted at the favourable moment with the "correct voice," would evoke the most formidable deities from beyond the confines of the universe: they could bind and loose at will Osiris, Sit, Anubis, even Thot himself; they could send them forth, and recall them, or constrain them to work and fight for them. The extent of their power exposed the magicians to terrible temptations; they were often led to use it to the detriment of others, to satisfy their spite, or to gratify their grosser appetites. Many, moreover, made a gain of their knowledge, putting ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... plain to the mountainous region. By these decisive measures, he hoped to reduce the adherents of Gonzalo Pizarro to such straits, by depriving them of every possible succour and refreshment, after the fatigues of a long and painful march, encumbered with baggage and artillery, as might constrain them to disband their army, when they might find the whole way between Lima and Truxillo reduced to a desert entirely devoid of provisions. The viceroy considered himself under the necessity of employing these strong measures, as some of his people deserted from him almost daily ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr

... that this confidential conversation had produced an effect altogether different from that which she expected, said, 'My dear child, I will not any more constrain your inclination: deliberate at leisure, but conceal your feelings ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre

... superior strength,' said Mary, who finding that good words had not the least effect upon him, made no further effort to suppress her indignation; 'if you force me by your superior strength to accompany you back, and to be the subject of your insolence upon the way, you cannot constrain the expression of my thoughts. I hold you in the deepest abhorrence. I know your real nature ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens

... lethargy of Mind, that nums our Faculties, destroys our Reason, and to our Sex the bane of all Agreements; shou'd I whom Fortune, lavish of her store, has given the means to glut insatiate Wishes, out-vie my Sex, and Lord it o'er Mankind, constrain my rambling Pleasures, check my Liberty for an insipid Cooing sort of Life, which marry'd Fools think Heav'n, and cheat ...
— The Fine Lady's Airs (1709) • Thomas Baker

... small church, of poor construction and meagrely furnished with the necessaries for celebrating the religious offices. One of the new Bishop's first disciplinary acts was to summon the three vagrant priests to Ciudad Real, where he might constrain them to a more sacerdotal life under his immediate authority. Las Casas lived according to the strict rule of his Order, eating only fish, eggs, and vegetables, and, though he permitted meat to the others who sat at his table, there was so little to tickle the palate of the epicure that ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt

... easy matter to hold converse with a god. The god had his own way of speaking, which was intelligible only to the man acquainted with it; but one who did rightly understand it knew not only how to ascertain, but also how to manage, the will of the god, and even in case of need to overreach or to constrain him. It was natural, therefore, that the worshipper of the god should regularly consult such men of skill and listen to their advice; and thence arose the corporations or colleges of men specially skilled in religious lore, a thoroughly national Italian institution, which had a far ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... none. Another has money; he must give it to him who has not enough to buy bread with. On this principle, at Barjols, they tax the Ursulin nuns 1,800 livres, carry off fifty loads of wheat from the Chapter, eighteen from one poor artisan, and forty from another, and constrain canons and beneficiaries to give acquittances to their farmers. Then, from house to house, with club in hand, they oblige some to hand over money, others to abandon their claims on their debtors, "one to desist from criminal proceedings, another ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... union, for she has a proud and willful heart, over which no one has any influence except the Electoral Prince, and he, indeed, will not use his influence in our behalf. Well, there is nothing for it but to oppose force to force, and to constrain the dear lady to give her consent. To employ such coercive measures is your ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach

... passages already cited from Mr. Dayman beside the original, and the reader will be surprised to see how direct and literal, how faithful at once to the Italian thought and to English idiom in expressing it, Mr. Dayman is. His harness of triplets seems hardly to constrain his movement, so skillfully does he wear it. If we confront him with the spirited version in quatrains of Dr. Parsons, in the passages cited from the "Inferno," or with those from the "Paradiso," in Mr. Longfellow's less free unrhymed version, ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert

... of the world in all their conceivable relations to each other. Most other writers in this way are either simple moralists, or simple lawyers, or even sometimes simple theologists. As for him, a citizen of all nations, he cares less what duty requires of us than what means may constrain us to do it; about the metaphysical perfection of laws, than about what man is capable of; about laws which have been made, than about those which ought to have been made; about the laws of a particular people, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... include training and education, as well as new ways to exploit our technical and industrial capacity. It is possible that in these resource, technical, and commercial industrial areas that Rapid Dominance may provide particular utility that otherwise may constrain the ...
— Shock and Awe - Achieving Rapid Dominance • Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade

... The conduct of my son, my own intent, And what part you're to act, you'll know at once. For my son, Sosia, now to manhood grown, Had freer scope of living: for before How might you know, or how indeed divine His disposition, good or ill, while youth, Fear, and a master, all constrain'd him? ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer

... isolated by wide stretches of rolling grassland. To the eastward and westward of the great valley rise the sentinel peaks of the two enclosing mountain ranges; and across the shut-in area the river plunges from pool to pool, twisting and turning as the craggy and densely forested lesser heights constrain it. ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde

... when we are there. In such a case he oughtn't to reckon with me, and I cannot constrain him. He's free at any moment. I am his comrade—a wife, of course. But the conditions of his work are such that for years and years I cannot regard our bond as a usual one, like that of others. It will ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky

... vital warmth to commend it. We speak from the vague impressions which many long years have been busy in effacing; and we confess that it would require the combined forces of a long voyage and a scanty library to constrain us to the task of reading ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various

... into the more inland countries, which had never heard of Jesus Christ; yet he forbore it at that time, upon this account, that in those kingdoms where there were no Portuguese to protect the new Christians, the idolaters and Saracens would make war on them, or constrain them to renounce their Christianity ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden

... perpetually told, that, without a God there would be no moral obligation; that the people and even the sovereigns require a legislator powerful enough to constrain them. Moral constraint supposes a law; but this law arises from the eternal and necessary relations of things with one another; relations, which have nothing common with the existence of a God. The rules of Man's conduct are derived from his own nature which he is capable of knowing, and not ...
— Good Sense - 1772 • Paul Henri Thiry, Baron D'Holbach

... conclusion, is the root of the matter: to claim freedom and to allow it in like measure; rather than to deny, to urge men to follow their beliefs: only thus can they find salvation. To constrain a man to profess what we profess is worse than delusion: should he give lip service to what he does not hold at heart, 'twere for him deceitful and for us dangerous. Where his star calls, let him walk sincerely. If his creed is insufficient or inconsistent, ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney

... negotiation begun with that Government looking to a convention of naturalization between the United States and Roumania, certain considerations were set forth for the Minister's guidance concerning the character of the emigration from that country, the causes which constrain it, and the consequences so far as they adversely affect ...
— Notes on the Diplomatic History of the Jewish Question • Lucien Wolf

... admonitions and warnings! why stay ye not when ye come? But rather are ye predictions than warnings, ye shadows! Yet not so much predictions from without, as verifications of the foregoing things within. For with little external to constrain us, the innermost necessities in our being, these still drive ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... a right understanding and mutuall confidence betwixt the Churches of Christ in both Kingdoms constrain us, so the good acceptance and the suitable affections that the Declaration of the last Generall Assembly met with in England from the Lovers of the Covenant and present Reformation, together with the many Testimonies that have of late been given unto the ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland

... grace of God, that we ought to need no stimulus to good works. The forgiveness of our sins, the having been made forever the children of God, the having before us the Father's house as our home;—these blessings ought to be sufficient motives to constrain us in love and gratitude to serve God abundantly all the days of our life, and cheerfully also to give up, as he may call for it, that with which he has intrusted us of the things of this world. But whilst this is the ...
— The Life of Trust: Being a Narrative of the Lord's Dealings With George Mueller • George Mueller

... the hearts of men. It must ring in their ears; it must have music in itself; it must appeal to the senses as well as to the feelings, the imagination, the intellect: then, when it seizes at once on the whole man, on body, soul, and spirit, will it "swell in the heart, and kindle in the eyes," and constrain him, he knows not why, to believe and to obey.—Fraser, ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various

... merchant, "I entreat you in the name of all this noble company, that you constrain us not to lay perjury to our souls by swearing to a thing which we have neither seen nor heard. Show us, at least, some portrait of this lady, though it be no bigger than a grain of wheat, that our scruples may be ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... more admire, For that to me thou seem'st the man, whom late Our new baptizing Prophet at the Ford Of Jordan honour'd so, and call'd thee Son Of God: I saw and heard, for we sometimes 330 Who dwell this wild, constrain'd by want, come forth To Town or Village nigh (nighest is far) Where ought we hear, and curious are to hear, What happ'ns new; Fame also finds us out. To whom the Son of God. Who brought me hither Will bring me hence, no other Guide I seek, By Miracle he may, reply'd the Swain, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... promise must be fulfilled, however harmful it may be to him who exacts it. It would be ruinous to you if you did not fulfil it. It seems as though the moral of these fables implies that a supreme necessity may constrain one to comply with evil. God, in truth, knows no other judge that can compel him to give what may turn to evil, he is not like Jupiter who fears the Styx. But his own wisdom is the greatest judge that he can find, there is no appeal from ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz

... does my wounded heart Hope, alas, to heal; Seeking, to allay its smart, Things that cannot feel. Better should my pain Bitterly complain, Crying shrill, To thee who dost constrain My spirit to ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... inevitably increased her attraction for Sir Tancred; it had deepened his liking to a far stronger feeling. He cursed the unkindly Fates, and told himself that his only course was to fly; that the more he saw of her, the more painful would that flight be. But he could by no means constrain himself to forego the delight of her presence; and, though he never let a word of his love escape his lips, his eyes and the tones of his voice told her of ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson



Words linked to "Constrain" :   bridle, cumber, bound, confine, trammel, throttle, limit, clog, restrict, curb



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